Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPod Question about Ipod, Itunes, and Multiple Drives

D

drmike

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2006
77
0
California
Hi all,

I've got a few very basic questions about iPod and iTunes. Forgive me if I sound like a newbie, but here goes:

1) I just bought a new 5.5G 30GB iPod and love it. There's a chance, though, that I might get the 80GB instead and hand off the 30GB to a family member. Will the iTunes on my computer allow me to use a new 80GB iPod even though iTunes is already associated with the 30GB? In other words, can two different iPods be used with the same computer? (I won't give away the 30GB immediately and might need to switch back and forth between 2 iPods.)

2) With iTunes, how easy is it to have the music library across two drives? My computer only has a 40GB drive and I want to put the music I can't fit on it onto an external hard drive. I'm hoping I can access the music on both drives through iTunes. Any advice on how to do this would be a great help.

3) Apparently, there's an option in iTunes to "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library." Does this need to be turned off when using multiple drives?

Thanks for your help.
 
drmike said:
1) I just bought a new 5.5G 30GB iPod and love it. There's a chance, though, that I might get the 80GB instead and hand off the 30GB to a family member. Will the iTunes on my computer allow me to use a new 80GB iPod even though iTunes is already associated with the 30GB? In other words, can two different iPods be used with the same computer? (I won't give away the 30GB immediately and might need to switch back and forth between 2 iPods.)
Click to expand...


Yeah, you can sync more than one iPod with the same iTunes library. I have three iPods attached to my library. As far as I know, there isn't a limit to the amount of iPods you can sync with your library. :)


drmike said:
2) With iTunes, how easy is it to have the music library across two drives? My computer only has a 40GB drive and I want to put the music I can't fit on it onto an external hard drive. I'm hoping I can access the music on both drives through iTunes. Any advice on how to do this would be a great help.
Click to expand...


It's not terribly easy. I guess the best way to do this is with a series of aliases. While iTunes is closed, move a selection of your tracks/folders to the external drive and the place aliases for them in their previous locations. That should suffice.


drmike said:
3) Apparently, there's an option in iTunes to "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library." Does this need to be turned off when using multiple drives?
Click to expand...


It depends whether you want the new music on your external or your internal drive. I guess you can add it to the Music folder and then go back and use the above alias method to put it on your external. :)
 
Thanks very much for the reply -- very helpful. Good to know that I can sync multiple iPods and that I can also use aliases to access music on multiple drives. I was messing around with iTunes this morning, and I noticed there's a feature in the File menu called "Add Folder to Library..." I wonder if that's another way to access music on other drives. I don't have an external drive right now (will be getting one later this week), so I can't test it out -- but it also seems like an option because it looks as if it'll let me point to any folder anywhere, which is good. If anyone's done this and it works, let me know, otherwise I'll test it out once I get an external drive hooked up. (Actually, what I'd love to do is get a new iMac with a 250GB hard drive and not worry at all about an external drive, but right now I can't justify it. :) )
 
My library was split to 2 different drives (my MB's HD, and my 250GB Lacie HD). I just had an iTunes music folder in my music folder on my MB, and an iTunes music folder on my lacie drive. iTunes accessed the content on both drives perfectly, until I upgraded to iTunes 7.

Now I've finally managed to delete the iTunes folder on my MB, and just use the iTunes folder on my Lacie:)
 
Ah, thanks -- so it definitely is possible (though apparently not as easy with iTunes 7). I'm running iTunes 7, and when I get my external drive, I'll see if iTunes will read both -- if not, I'll just migrate the music to the external drive and associate iTunes with it.
 
iTunes 7 will allow you to have two separate libraries, if that's what you're after. It works the same way as iPhoto and you just have to press OPTION as you open iTunes to decide which library to use. Does this help? :)
 
buh?

mad jew said:
iTunes 7 will allow you to have two separate libraries, if that's what you're after. It works the same way as iPhoto and you just have to press OPTION as you open iTunes to decide which library to use. Does this help? :)
Click to expand...

I never knew about this. holy cow! this changes everything! can you access songs in a different library from within one another? say i wanted to have a "classical" library and an "everything else" library, and didn't want to just have a smart playlist for all songs with the genre "classical"... could i also play classical music from within my larger "everything else" library?
 
Nah, at this stage it looks like the libraries are completely independent - meaning you can't access songs from Library A when Library B is loaded which is effectively the same as iPhoto. Of course, this might be different if you don't let iTunes manage your song files (even if only on one library). :)
 
mad jew said:
iTunes 7 will allow you to have two separate libraries, if that's what you're after. It works the same way as iPhoto and you just have to press OPTION as you open iTunes to decide which library to use. Does this help? :)
Click to expand...

Wow, I had no idea iTunes does this. I don't know if I'm really after two separate libraries, so much as if I'm after one library on multiple drives. But if iTunes 7 won't allow that, then I'll try your suggestion of two separate libraries. If that doesn't quite work out for me in terms of what I ultimately would like with my digital music (access any song anywhere at anytime) then I'll try the one-drive route (all music on the external drive). But I'll give the separate libraries a shot -- thanks very much for the suggestion.
 
Yeah, it's not an ideal solution. Nevertheless, you should still be able to set up a series of aliases to keep some music on your external and some on your internal drive. As far as I know, this is still very possible in iTunes 7.0. :)
 
Like I said, I had an iTunes folder on my MB, and 1 on my Lacie, and I had some content in each folder (tv shows and movies on the Lacie, and the rest on my MB);), and iTunes managed to access both of them perfectly, but when I upgraded to iTunes 7, it stopped working and messed up all my permissions!
 
Have you trued reconfiguring it (recreating the aliases)? Also, the last few iTunes updates have needed the user to repair permissions in Disk Utility. :)
 
mad jew said:
Have you trued reconfiguring it (recreating the aliases)? Also, the last few iTunes updates have needed the user to repair permissions in Disk Utility. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, iTunes 7 messed up my permissions!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back